It’s an interesting point. Conventional wisdom held that the oil industry’s genetic makeup is boom and bust. The 1980s cured that notion with energy and economic shock. Hard times came fast and furious. Oil prices went into free fall in 1986, dropping 46 percent to $8 per barrel. Oil and mining jobs fell 57 percent. By 1987 the region had 221,900 fewer jobs than just five years before. The real estate market was shattered. Homes were under flood waters.

A snapshot of dire conditions is in the preface of Buzz Bissinger’s classic “Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, and A Dream.”As he turns down State Highway 80 toward Odessa, Texas, where he would spend the next year researching his book, he notes “There is row after row of oil field machinery that no one has use for anymore. Farther on down comes a series of grimy motels that don’t have a single car parked in front of them.” Change demanded more than shuffling the organizational charts or bringing in a few geniuses and superheroes.

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